


Once Upon a Nightmare... or a Vision?

by Demiwitchwoodwalker



Category: IT (Movies - Muschietti), IT - Stephen King, Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Bad Parent Ted Wheeler, Bisexual Mike Wheeler, Bisexual Richie Tozier, But whatever, Crossover, Death, Derry (Stephen King), Disappearances, Dreams and Nightmares, Dreamsharing, Eddie Kaspbrak Loves Richie Tozier, F/F, F/M, Gay Eddie Kaspbrak, Gay Will Byers, Hawkins (Stranger Things), I attempted his voices, Kinda, M/M, Mike Wheeler Loves Will Byers, Minor Original Character(s), Near Death Experiences, Not IT Chapter Two Compliant, Not Season/Series 03 Compliant, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Pennywise (IT) Lives, Period-Typical Homophobia, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Reddie, Richie Tozier Loves Eddie Kaspbrak, Richie Tozier and Mike Wheeler Are Twins, Richie Tozier's Sense of Humor, Robin Buckley & Steve Harrington Friendship, Sonia Kaspbrak Being Terrible, The Void, Well - Freeform, Will Byers Loves Mike Wheeler, and all the other people who know how messed up Hawkins is, because I can't handle that, because I can't handle that either, but he doesn't get that, byler, elmax - Freeform, he just wants a normal life, only the party and losers' club can tell anything is different, stan is done with everything, universe combination
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-03-23
Updated: 2020-03-24
Packaged: 2021-02-28 19:55:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,115
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23022826
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Demiwitchwoodwalker/pseuds/Demiwitchwoodwalker
Summary: The Losers club thought everything was over after the summer of 1984, that their lives would go back to being normal, well as normal as anyone is Derry's life could be. Then Richie started having the nightmares, of a whole different city and a whole different monster. At first none of them really thought much of it, they were probably just dreams, they said, but a few weeks after they started, they changed from events to him being able to talk to someone who looks both exactly like him, and at the same time not at all; a boy who says his name is Mike Wheeler.Everyone in the Party had nightmares, so Mike didn't tell any of the others about the new ones until huge earthquakes start shaking Hawkins, and the boy in the nightmares said they were hitting his town as well. The Party had no idea what that could mean, then suddenly the morning after the worst of the earthquakes hit, something happened, something that would change Hawkins and Derry forever.(Sorry about the terrible summary... this is basically just a Stranger Things and IT crossover, which nobody asked for but I still decided to write.)
Relationships: Ben Hanscom/Beverly Marsh, Bill Denbrough/Stanley Uris, Eddie Kaspbrak/Richie Tozier, Eleven | Jane Hopper/Maxine "Max" Mayfield, Robin Buckley & Steve Harrington, Robin Buckley/Original Female Character(s), Steve Harrington & Dustin Henderson, Steve Harrington & The Party, Will Byers/Mike Wheeler
Comments: 3
Kudos: 41





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is my first time writing for both IT and Stranger Things, so... we'll see what happens. I'm sorry if the characters seem ooc, but I hope the story itself is at least decent.

#  **The Beginning of the Dreams**

##  **1**

Richie Tozier’s eyes snapped open as he sat up so fast everything spun around him and the young teenager dragged in a deep, panicked breath. Shakily raising his hands to his face, he scrubbed at his eyes beneath his glasses with his palms. Richie couldn’t remember what he had been dreaming about before he woke up, but he assumed it was a nightmare, judging by the fact that his thin white undershirt was soaked through with sweat, his thick hair plastered to his forehead with it, and his heart was racing so fast in his chest it felt like it might erupt. Breathing hurt, it felt like it was burning through his throat with each panicked wheeze. He felt so disoriented it took him a moment to realize he was surrounded by complete darkness, as if everything was blanketed in shadows.

By the time he did notice this, he was beginning to calm down, but at the revelation he felt his breath hitch in his throat all over again. In that moment Richie thought he understood why Eddie still carried around an aspirator despite not really having asthma; it was a way that he could easily calm down the terrifying feeling of not being able to properly get air into your lungs, of tiny needles stabbing into the inside of your throat as it closed up more and more with each breath. He hadn’t slept without some source of light in his bedroom since the whole thing with Pennywise happened last summer, not that he would ever admit that to anyone for the life of him. Usually he left the lamp next to his bed on overnight, so why was it so dark?

Richie turned around, attempting to swing his legs over the side of his mattress and stand up. However, there didn’t seem to be a side of his bed to throw his legs over, it was as if he was on the floor. The second that thought crossed his mind, he realized that the surface he was sitting on was definitely not his bed, it wasn’t soft and springy, it felt instead almost… wet. As if he was back in the sewers. How had he not noticed before? That sent a whole nother jolt of panic through Richie and he frantically looked around himself, as if a clown with glowing silver eyes was standing somewhere in the darkness, watching him. But there was nothing in sight, not even a tiny speck of light in the distance. 

Trembling, Richie pushed himself to his feet, this time hearing the sloshing sound of water under him as he moved. He then slowly turned in a circle, feeling the few inches of liquid he was standing in swirl around his ankles, although his feet didn’t even feel damp despite the fact that he fell asleep wearing socks. Furrowing his eyebrows in confusion, he looked down to see if he could figure out why that was. 

Suddenly bright flashes of light blazed up around him and his dark brown eyes reflexively snapped shut, his hands flying up to cover his face again. He didn’t take any notice to the fact that his hands weren’t wet despite the fact that he had placed them in the water to push himself to his feet, nor did he realize that the water he was previously standing in had turned into a solid, uneven forest ground. 

“Will!” A loud, screaming voice began to echo around him, seeming to roll off of invisible walls and bounce back at him with increased volume. Richie slowly lowered his hands, clamping them over his ears instead in an attempt to block out the loud voice, as he blinked the small black and scarlet dots out of his vision. For a brief moment he couldn’t see a difference between his surroundings before the lights, and now. The echo slowly died down and for a short, hopeful second Richie thought it had been another nightmare, and that nothing had actually happened. Then he felt large, fat drops of rain falling onto his shoulders, into his thick, dark hair and rolling down his back between his shoulder blades. He repressed a terrified shudder, the feeling of, and sound of, dripping water reminding him of the Derry sewers, and of Its lair. 

The beam of a flashlight suddenly cut through the darkness, rain drops being illuminated by it as they poured down from the sky in steady streams. A small patch of earth became visible directly in front of Richie, almost as if the flashlight was in his hands. Leaves and broken sticks littered the uneven, earthy path, covering up roots of varying sizes that jutted out of the dirt. ‘What the fuck is going on? Where am I?’ Richie tried to ask himself aloud, but what came out of his mouth was a loud call of “Will! Will, where are you?!”, as if he wasn’t in control of himself.

More flashlight beams appeared on the ground in front of him, wavering as if the people holding them were walking quickly and on uneven ground. “Byers!” A different voice yelled from somewhere to Richie’s right and suddenly, as if a veil had been pulled away from his surroundings, he could see everything around him.

He was wandering through a thick, dark forest in the dead of the night, rain pouring down around him in sheets. His throat suddenly felt raw, as if he had been screaming, or crying, for hours. The usually barely visible frame of his glasses was gone from his line of sight, yet everything was completely clear, as if he still had them perched on the bridge of his nose. _I must have my contacts in_ , Richie thought to himself, though that didn’t make much sense since he despised wearing them. 

“Will!” Richie screamed at the same time as the first voice he had heard yelled, “I have your X-Men 134!” Glancing over his shoulder, Richie caught sight of the owner of the voice for a brief moment: a boy with a mess of curly hair being held down by a baseball cap and seemingly dark blue eyes who looked to be about the same age as him. It felt like he recognized him, but Richie couldn't place where from. Maybe he was in his class at school?

“Guys, I really think we should turn back.” the boy said in a slightly worried sounding, shaky voice a few moments later. “Seriously, Dustin? You wanna be a baby?” The other voice snapped back at him, clearly annoyed. “Then go home already!”

Richie felt his grip tighten on the flashlight in his hand, a wave of exasperation washing over him, and suddenly he heard a soft, almost inaudible, _snap!_ , like someone had stepped on a twig and broke it. He quickly shone his flashlight at the trees surrounding them, looking for the source of the noise. For some reason he didn’t feel scared of what could have caused it, he felt almost… hopeful? That didn’t make sense though, why would he-

_Is Will out there? Could it have been him?_ A voice that sounded eerily similar to Richie whispered in his head, sounding nervous, and uneasily hopeful. _Who are you?!_ Richie thought, although he was scared to know where the voice was coming from. There was no way it was someone speaking in his mind, Richie refused to believe that. Telepathy wasn’t real, even if it would be super cool if it did. Or maybe it wouldn’t. Either way, he didn’t want to find out. He had had enough supernatural things happen to him to last him at least three lifetimes. Though when the voice in his head didn’t respond, he felt a stab of disappointment. _It must have just been my own thoughts…_ The beam of the flashlight in his hand travelled back to the path in front of them slowly, hesitantly.

“I’m just being realistic, Lucas!” The voice most likely belonging to ‘Dustin’ snapped back to the other, now sounding equally as annoyed. “No, you’re just being a cissy!” retorted ‘Lucas’, and Richie tried to get himself to say something along the lines of: “Lay-dies, lay-dies, there’s no need to argue. We’re all fryends here.” in a sort of british accent, but still nothing came out. Why couldn’t Richie control what he was doing and saying?!

“You ever think of the fact that maybe Will went missing because he ran into something bad, and now we’re going to the exact spot where he was last seen? And we have no weapons or anything!” Dustin yelled, fear creeping into his voice.

Out of nowhere a wave of overwhelming anger enveloped Richie, so sudden and with no particular reason behind it, that for a brief second the idea of it not really being his flashed through his mind. “Shut up! Just, shut up, Dustin!” Richie practically screamed, glaring at him for a quick moment before surging forward, getting ahead of the other two by a few meters by quickening his pace. _God, I can’t believe them. I can’t hear a thing or concentrate on looking for Will with them bickering like that!_ The voice in his head spoke again, but Richie ignored it this time. It didn’t really make any sense to pay it any attention, it didn’t reply last time.

“I’m just saying, does that seem smart to you?!” The second Dustin said that Richie heard another _snap!_ , followed by the sound of rustling leaves.

Richie felt himself shake his head in annoyance and disbelief before halting abruptly in his stride and shoving his hand out in front of Dustin, effectively stopping him. “Shut up! You guys hear that?” He asked, and for a brief moment the other boy seemed to be shaking his head, only to freeze when an even louder _snap!_ sounded from the bushes barely five feet from where they stood. All of them then frantically tried to shine their flashlights on everything surrounding them at once, until they all landed on one spot, just behind where they had stood seconds before.

Richie caught a brief glimpse of a person with a shaved head, dripping with rainwater, before everything faded into the endless dark abyss again, only for him to be thrown back into a completely different scene a few moments later.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, so I'm not exactly positive when the scene Mike experiences is supposed to canonly take place, but for the sake of this story and because most of the the scenes from IT will be from the book, I'm guessing it's the first time Richie ever saw anything related to Pennywise. Also, since there are some homophobic terms used in this (by Bowers), I'm warning you of that now and I'm going to add that to the tags. I absolutely hated writing those parts of this, but I still feel like this turned out alright. I apologize if some of the lines aren't exactly the same as they are in the movie, I don't really have any way to make sure they're completely correct. Though, I'm sorry if the beginning seems quite similar to the beginning of the last chapter, I'd tried to make it seem different but I don't think I really succeeded...

#  **The Beginning of the Dreams**

##  **2**

Mike Wheeler had nightmares, more often than he liked to admit. They had started after Will‘s disappearance, the Demogorgon, and the Mind Flayer, but he had never had one quite like this. Usually he relived the moments where they were attacked in the school, or where he was in that hospital room with Will as the Mind Flayer took control. They often had different endings to the real events, terrifying ones, even more horrifying than the actual things that happened. More often than not the alternate ending would be one of his friends, or he himself dying some terrible, painful death. This dream was nothing like the others though, not at all.

Everything around him was pitch black, as if he were in a room made purely of onyx or obsidian. The floor seemed to be covered in a very shallow layer of water, reminding him of the way that El had once described the place she went when he had her visions. The only sound Mike could hear was the soft splashing that came with every step forward he took.

He didn’t have a clue where he was going, there wasn’t so much as a tiny speck of light shining far off in the distance. There was nothing he could be heading towards, nothing. The only reason he could think of as to why he hadn’t stopped walking yet was the feeling he had in his chest that told him he was going the right way. Still, despite the fact that he had been wandering around for what like days, nothing had changed at all; it was as if he was simply walking on a treadmill, moving, but never actually going anywhere.

“What is going on?” Mike muttered under his breath after a while and finally stopped, crossing his arms over his chest. He glanced around himself again, for what felt like the millionth time, to see if anything in his surroundings had changed yet, but before he could really look a piercing pain stabbed into his eyes, as if something was trying to claw its way out from behind them. A scream ripped itself from Mike’s throat, and his hands flew up to his face, pressing the balls of his hands into his eyes, which he squeezed shut tightly as if that could help. “Shit!” Mike hissed under his breath, hearing the pain in his own voice through that one simple curse. 

Tears stung at the back of his eyes, threatening to spill down his cheeks in streams of salt water. Sobs caught in his throat, mixing with more screams of pain and becoming almost wails of agony that seemed to bounce off of invisible walls. Mike felt his knees give out under him and he crashed to the ground still pressing his hands to his burning eyes. That’s what they felt like after all, he realized, like they were being burned by a terrible mix of acid, alcohol and lava. Water sprayed up around him as his knees struck the ground and for the first time he realized how smooth and hard it was beneath the rippling water.

Slowly, after what felt like hours though it was probably only a few minutes, the pain began to fade, only to be immediately replaced by a ringing in his ears which turned into the sound of a large group of people laughing. Mike hesitantly lowered his hands from his face, blinking his dark eyes open warily, scared both of what he might see and that the pain would return. Bright summer sunlight pierced into his vision, and he was about to squeeze his eyes shut again when, as if someone else was controlling his movements, he brought his right hand up to his face, wiping at his eyes and… pushing a pair of glasses a bit up the bridge of his nose? Mike didn’t have glasses, he never even thought he needed them, so why the hell was he wearing some?

Tears were rolling down his cheeks in two silent streams, meeting at his chin and dripping down to the ground, one fat drop at a time.  _ Why am I crying? I don’t… I wasn’t crying before, was I? No, I stopped myself…  _ Mike thought in confusion at the same time as another voice, one that was not his own, one that he had never heard before in his life yet somehow still felt like he recognized, echoed through his mind.  _ “Get the fuck out of here, faggot!” _

His breath hitched in his throat and Mike started running, as if someone was chasing him, continuing to wipe furiously at his eyes every time his vision blurred with tears. He raced down familiar streets, though he had never seen them before. His feet practically flew over the pavement of the sidewalk as he ran until he reached a park with a sort of huge plastic statue standing on a pedestal in the center of it. Why was there a statue made of  _ plastic _ in the middle of a park? And how did Mike even know it was made of plastic?!

Mike’s pace slowed as he ran onto the grass, past the statue of a lumberjack without so much as a glance up at the almost terrifying, grinning face of it. He finally came to a stop at a green, wooden park bench, collapsing onto it and burying his face in his hands, taking the pair of glasses off as he did so. His entire body was shaking with a mix of anxiety, embarrassment, and repressed sobs.Tears were streaming down his face again, not allowing themselves to be held back at all anymore. The tangy taste of salt filled his mouth and Mike furiously scrubbed at his cheeks, trying unsuccessfully to dry them off with his palms.

The words that had been echoing through his mind since he had appeared here seemed to get louder, drowning out every other noise coming from around him. “Shut up… shut up, shut up,  _ shut up! _ ” Mike muttered under his breath, sliding his hands up into his dark curls and gripping them so tightly it felt like he was ripping some strands out of his scalp. He wasn’t sure whether he himself was the one making himself say that, he knew he wanted the voice to stop, but he only thought it. The feeling of not really being in control of what he was doing still lingered in him, confusing Mike and making him want to somehow get away from this. To wake up, because he must be dreaming, he must be. There was no other explanation as to how he got from being in that eerily empty, dark void to running through a city in the middle of a bright, sunny day.

“Wanna kiss, Richie?” A deep, raspy voice that sounded like a paper shredder, if you tried to shred plastic in it, yelled from somewhere near Mike and a jolt of terror went through him. His head snapped up, his hands fumbling frantically to get the glasses in them back onto his nose. The tears stopped flowing, but his breath continued to hitch in the back of his throat, though it seemed to be more from fear now. Mike recognized the feeling, it had clawed at his heart almost every night since Will first disappeared and each time they were attacked by something.

The plastic lumberjack statue had disappeared from its huge pedestal, vanished as if it had never been there. Mike’s eyes widened even further in confusion and bewilderment, and he quickly stood up and snapped his head to the side to see if he could find the statue, as if it had simply stood up and wandered off to somewhere else in the park. The second he turned to the right he was met with the sight of a huge mouth filled with rotting, ten foot long, razor sharp teeth baring down at him, growling menacingly. 

For a brief moment the fear and terror consuming Mike were so intense that he couldn’t even bring himself to scream. Then a deafening roar came from the back of the mouth and a horde of bats came flying out, surrounding him in a flurry of shiny, leathery wings and tiny, sharp talons. They flew around him in circles, making him feel dizzy, disoriented. Finally he found his voice and screamed louder than he thought himself capable of, backing away from the huge person who was straightening their posture to reveal that it was the statue, except… it wasn’t exactly the same. It still shone in the afternoon sun, its paint was still slightly weather-stained, it still had the same clothes and same axe gripped in its hand, but it was no longer grinning kindly. Its mouth was moldy and flaking apart, grime surrounding its lips like clown make-up. 

As the bats flew off in every direction possible, Mike still backing away from the statue, it lifted its axe and brought it up above its head.  _ He’s aiming at  _ me _. _ , thought Mike in a dazed terror and spun on his heel as fast as he could, sprinting away as quick as his legs could go without him tripping and stumbling onto the ground. The lumberjack’s axe slammed into the ground right where he had been standing only seconds before, splitting the ground open and making dirt and grass fly everywhere. Mike almost stumbled as the axe was yanked back out of the earth, causing it to shake below him.

_ What the fuck is going on?! _ A voice that sounded almost exactly like Mike’s, with just a bit of a different accent, yelled in his head and despite how terrified Mike felt, a stab of confusion as to who the voice could belong to pushed the fear aside for a brief second. None of what was happening made any sense to Mike, no part of it even seemed like something his imagination could come up with. It all looked and felt so vivid and completely and utterly  _ real _ , but it couldn’t be. Mike had been through some pretty weird stuff, but nothing like this could happen in real life.

The axe slammed into the ground again, this time right at Mike’s heels, startling him out of his thoughts as he stumbled forward, this time having to catch himself from face planting in the grass. He practically crawled a few steps forward as he desperately tried to get away from the terrifying statue. Even though he was sure he was dreaming, he couldn’t help but feel like if he didn’t get as far away from it, he would die. Mike stumbled again as he raced through the park, the axe missing him a few more times and digging deep, gaping holes into the ground every time, scarring the field with its huge blade.

Glancing over his shoulder, Mike felt another jolt of terror stab into his heart causing him to almost stop running.  _ Oh fuck, I’m gonna die. I’m going to die! _ The voice screamed in his head and Mike felt his right foot knock into his left ankle and he stumbled slightly, again.  _ Holy fucking shit, I’m actually going to die!  _ That brief second in which he almost fell gave the lumberjack time to aim with his axe and it slammed into the ground right next to Mike, sending him flying to side, onto the ground, dirt and grass spraying all over him and knocking the glasses off of his face.

Without really realizing what he was doing, Mike curled in on himself, repeating the same mantra of words under his breath like a prayer. “It’s not real, it’s not real, it’s not real, it’s not real, it’s not real….” He was shaking again, his knees pulled up to his chest and his hands covering his eyes. Mike was sure that the lumberjack’s statue was going to slice him in half with its axe any second now, was bracing himself for it and the fact that he would wake up after that. Hopefully. He always woke up after he died in dreams, always sat bolt upright in bed, panting with his shirt soaked through with sweat. There was no reason why this time would be any different… right?

It took Mike at least three minutes without anything happening for him to finally look up from his hands to see why he wasn’t dead yet. For a moment Mike was sure he was missing something. The statue seemed to have vanished, again, somehow. Mike knew he should feel relieved, and he did in a way, but he more so still felt terrified. Why did the lumberjack disappear again? Where was it? 

He fumbled around in the grass around him for a few seconds as he sat up, searching for the glasses that had fallen off. Why exactly, Mike still didn’t know, though he had to admit everything seemed blurred and fuzzy, like his eyes were filled with tears. They were completely dry though, not a single teardrop swimming in them or rolling down his cheeks, so why was it like that? Mike didn’t have any vision problems! 

His fingers brushed against something smooth in the grass a few feet to his right and he grabbed the ridiculously large pair of glasses, shoving them back onto his face. One of its temple tips almost stabbed him in the eye, his hands were shaking so much as he did so. Everything suddenly came back into focus and Mike noticed that the statue was back on its pedestal, its axe thrown across its shoulder and a kind grin spread across its plastic face. A sigh of relief escaped his lips and he let himself fall back into the grass. It really was over, or at least, it seemed like it was. 

“I think I just shit my pants..” Mike heard himself mutter and before he could even begin to wonder why he had said that, despite the fact that he hadn’t even thought something remotely similar to that, everything around him faded into black. He was in the void. Again. It didn’t stay dark this time though, barely ten seconds after he appeared there everything flared up with light and color again and he was suddenly standing somewhere completely different.


End file.
